Editing RuneQuest 2.5 Magic

 - Main Page; [[The Prax Adventure]]

==Regaining Divine Magic ==

Fluff: Go to a holy site, offer sacrifices, re-enact the cult secrets that grant the spell, commune with the deity and have the magic refreshed.

Mechanics: 
1. Go to a shrine/temple of the deity. 
2. Offer a sacrifice (money, goods, enemy cults scalps, ???) proportional to the amount of magic and your station (above and beyond standard tithes).
3. Roll Ceremony for each point of divine magic you want back. It takes 1 day per point you want to relearn . 
4. Go to 2 and repeat until you relearn all you divine magic.

I make it difficult as an initiate, but at least you can get them back. It mostly costs time and money. 

This means that a 3 point divine spell will take 3 days to regain, if you make all your Ceremony rolls. It might take a week or more, practically.

FYI, Acolytes and Priests regain divine magic faster and easier. Rune Lords (who aren't also priests) regain it like Initiates.

== Shamans ==

Shamans are strange in RQ III. Well, I suppose shamans are strange in general....

Really, a shaman is just someone who has accessed their spiritual side, the fetch, and is able to make conscious use of it. Many shamans worship the various minor spirit cults around, and can worship many of them. Others are both shaman and priest dedicated to a specific god. For example, the priestesses of Kygor Litor are typically a full priestess and a full shaman.

I let the fetch start with a rolled POW rather than having to build it. Then I let it improve at a 5% chance of POW gain on it's own. It's a bit of a mixture with RQ 2. I found RQ 3 PC shamans to be impossible to really create in play as they start out too vulnerable. 

Otherwise, mechanics are pretty much RQ3. No skill caps though and Ceremony is the only magic skill now. You'll need to find a shaman to be a mentor to help you make the transition at some point.

You can know up to your INT worth of spells. The fetch can know up to it's INT worth of spells. You can easily forget them and learn new ones. Additionally, the fetch can capture and hold other spirits to be used at any point. You can also enter the spirit world yourself and leave the fetch to protect your physical body. The fetch adds its POW to yours for defensive purposes against hostile magic and other spirits. You don't add it for offensive magic. However, you and the fetch can each cast spells, so you can cast two per round pretty easily.

*Both your and your fetch can cast spells independently.
*You can cast spells that your fetch knows and it can cast spells that you know, so long as you're in communication (generally will be).
*You can go find a spell spirit and learn a new spell.
*You can bind Intellect Spirits to remember spells for you if you run out of Intelligence to hold them.
*You can bind Passion Spirits (Fear, Pain, Madness, etc.) to throw at people offensively.
*You can bind Magic Spirits to cast spells they know for you.
*You can bind Power Spirits to use their magic points to power your own spells.
*You can see into the spirit plane and see the magical aura of everything and everyone around you. You'll be the only character who can gauge how powerful people around you are.
*You can actively engage spirits around you. Non-shamans cannot do that. The best they can do is defend themselves and run away.

== Learning Spirit Magic ==
Learning Spirit Magic: (via RQ3) you learn this by having a spirit summoned and defeating it in POW vs POW combat. The spirit has Xd3 POW, where X is the number of points in the spell. So, a spirit that knows Disruption (1) has a POW 1d3 and is easy to defeat, and thus learn the spell from. A spirit that knows Bladesharp 6 has a POW 6d3 has an average POW 12 and thus is not nearly as easy to defeat to learn a spell from. 

Learning from cults: lay member, initiates, rune lords, acolytes, and priests can learn cult spells from within the friendly confines of temple. The spirits are friendly, so there's nothing bad that happens if you fail to defeat the spirit and learn the spell. You go in offer a sacrifice of X Lunars per point of spell, the spirit is summoned and you try to learn the spell. Specific cost depends on the characters status. There's no prohibition against learning more than 1 spell/day, but you should offer a little extra more sacrifice (tip) for additional spells in the same day. (Note that powerful spirits will most likely drain you and you will need to rest before proceeding anyway.)

Variable spells: you must learn these sequentially. Learning Protection 4 from scratch requires first learning Protection 1, then learning Protection 2, then Protection 3, and finally Protection 4. It's four different spells that layer. (Still takes 4 Int to know them. This is just time and money.)

Cults teach spirit magic to anyone from friendly cults. It's just at a discount as you move up in the ranks.

It costs 10 L per point for spells, assuming you became a lay member. It costs 5 L per point for cults you're already initiated to.

== Learning Divine Magic ==
Learning Divine Magic: (via RQ3) available to initiates and above by going to the temple, offering a sacrifice and spending an entire day re-enacting the myth, sacrificing the POW and learning the spell. More powerful spells (2+ points) require additional days to gain command of the secret.

Also, per the RQ3 rules, it takes a week and a ~20L sacrifice to learn a point of divine magic the first time. Yes, it's a timely issue, but divine magic is powerful.

Cults will teach spells to others only from the lists of associated cults under each god.

== Magic Duration ==
Battle/spirit magic lasts 5 minutes and divine magic 15 minutes.
A full worship on the high holy day of the cult refreshes all divine magic. A full worship on seasonal holy days refreshes priests divine magic.